Here Comes The Pain
by P.J. Lowry
Summary: It always hits the fan when Frank Castle comes to Gotham City.


Robin knew he was in trouble, much more than his counterparts did. The mobsters who were in the process of delivering a new shipment of drugs knew Batman was out of town, but they were unaware of how long he would be gone. Tim tried his best to sneak in and find out what was going on. His plan was to contact Dick and the police when he found out and had proof something sinister was going on and not try to take everyone all by himself, he wasn't that strong and brave just yet. But he was not only caught but overpowered and outgunned, and worst of all... captured. He was tied down to a chair in one of the offices in the warehouse and he didn't have a chance to tell anyone where he was... so Tim was truely on his own. The chair Tim was tied to was near a window so he had a good view of the illegal ongoings that he was meant to stop. But since he was physically unable to do anything about it, he decided to ween his captors for a little information. "So... did you really think I was going to come alone, Marconi?"

Boss Marconi grinned in Robin's direction and puffed a big cloud of smoke at him from his cigar. "I know the Bat is out of town. He's the only one I'm really worried about."

But just as he said that, there was a loud crashing sound that came from below. Someone had driven a car through the steel gate and into the warehouse. People where yelling and screaming, thinking it was an accident until the man behind the wheel stepped out.

Marconi took one look outside the window and jaw gapped so wide, his cigar fell out of his mouth. "It can't be! It's actually him!"

Robin took a moment to look out the window to see what all the hoopla was about, The man was drapped in black, had rings of bullets wrapped around his shoulders, legs and waistline. The massive skull that covered most of his chest was unmistakable. It was Frank Castle, known by his file as 'The Punisher'. Batman had forced him to read dossiers about other rogue agents that had the potential to bring their own brand of justice into Gotham City. Tim read a lot of files, but never thought that any of them had the minerals to dare enter Batman's territory, but this guy did. He obviously heard there was a big deal going down and came to Gotham to cancel the order. This was not going to be pretty. Tim had read a lot of material about what kind of havoc the Punisher was capable of and now he was going to have a front row seat to all the action.

Everyone on the ground floor was frozen, shocked to be in the pressence of someone they had heard so much about and never had seen with their own eyes. Castle took full advantage of the moment and whipped out two lethal, hand held automatic weapons and grinned from ear to ear. "Welcome to judgement day!" Without hesitation, Castle started to spray the warehouse with bullets and and full blown firefight broke out. When the thugs started to return fire, Castle rolled over the hood to the other side of his car to take cover. Every four or five seconds he was popping up and down and spraying bullets in the direction of the enemy, mowing down as many people as he could

"Kill that son of a bitch!" Marconi screamed from the room above as he ducked down and took cover from the hail of bullets that was flying around. He took out a pistol, but Robin was suddenly aware that he was no longer the focus. Odds are they were going to leave him behind and run for the hills rather than hang around and face the Punisher.

Just as some people were settling in and digging in for a long fire fight, Castle had other plans. He pulled out a M32 'six shooter' grenade launcher. He started to fire one grenade over to the other side without any concern for who was over there, with mutliple explosions ripping into the warehouse and turning it into swiss cheese. After he had spent all six grenades from the launher, the attacker dropped it and pulled out an M6 automatic rifle and started to move beyond his car and moved in a zig zag motion, ripping into who ever was left and taking no prisoners.

Almost as quickly as it had started, it was suddenly over. Silence was all that came from the bottom floor and Marconi was freaking out. He had two thugs up there with him and he sent one of them down to check things out. The thug didn't make it down two stairs before being gunned down himself. The other thug tried to walk out to attack but the Punisher was already at the top of the stairs and he drove the butt of his rifle into the mans face, then into his stomach. Then Robin watched in stunned silence as Castle quickly ripped a grenade off his belt, pulled the pin and stuffed it into the thugs pants before hurling him out the door and over the staircase rail. The thug exploded just before he hit the grounds, shaking the room for a few seconds.

In an act of desperation, Marconi took his gun and held it to Tim's temple. "Not another step Castle, or the boy gets it!"

"Go ahead, scumbag." Caslte responded from behind his rifle, which was eye high and pointing at Marconi's head. "I don't do the sidekick thing."

"I'm serious!" Marconi screamed. "Do you want to be responsible for the death of another boy?" Castle hesitated for a moment and then began to lower his rifle. He tossed it into the far corner of the room. This is when Marconi made his gravest mistake as he took the gun away from Tim's temple and attempted to cut the war vetran down. Castle however was a walking arsonel, and had several pistols on his person to pick from. The Punisher didn't hesitate to draw a new weapon open up on the Mob Boss. The first shot took Marconi in the hand, which caused him to drop his own gun. Castle then fired another shot into Marconi's shoulder, sending the mobster crashing to the floor.

Castle walked closer to Robin and gave the kid a small grin as he suddenly realized who Marconi had captured. "Little early for Halloween, isn't it kid?" he said with dry sarcasm.

"Like I haven't heard that one before." Tim snapped back to the heavily armed vigilante.

Castle didn't respond and turned his attention back to Marconi who was withering on the floor in pain. "Time for the pain, Marconi. This is the end of your organization."

"You can't do this, Castle. I have rights!"

"I don't arrest people, I take them out."

"Don't do it!" Tim called from his chair. "How can you even call this justice?"

"This isn't justcice." Castle retorted as he pointed the pistol back at Marconi. "It's punishment."

"NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

BOOM!

Tim jumped upright in his bed, and the sheets were soaked in sweat. It wasn't the first time he had this dream, and it was really getting to him. It had been three weeks since the Punisher made his first high profile appearance in Gotham City, and he couldn't shake the nightmare. To get the dream off his mind, tim hopped out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen. It was in the middle of the night, but no one was around. Alfred hated it when people raided the fridge but Tim was in the mood for a late night snack. Tim sat alone at the small table eating a small bowl of vanilla ice cream when Bruce strolled into the kitchen. His mentor had been working late and was just coming up from the cave and it didn't take the world's greatest detective to figure out why Tim had was up this late in the evening. "Hi Bruce." Tim said as he took another small slurp.

"Had the dream again?" Bruce asked as he walked over to the table and took a seat.

"I can't get that night out of my head." Tim said as he put his spoon down. "All the anger, the hatred... he was not there to stop criminals but to kill them."

"The man has been through a lot..."

"Does that excuse what he did to those men?"

"No, of course not."

"We all suffered loss at the hands of criminals. You don't see us going postal and shooting places up first and asking questions later. Why can't he do the right thing and bring them to justice?"

"It's complicated." Bruce answered as he grabbed a spoon from the counter and took a small scoop from the bowl. "Sure we lost someone we love, but this man witnessed the death of something worse. A child. His son and his wife were murdered and he was powerless to stop it. A child is usually ready to outlive their parents, but to lose your own child is something that many find hard to recover from. Frank Castle for some reason or another does what he can to feed his hunger for revenge, but if we ever cross paths in the future... he'll be the one brought into justice, not the mobsters."

"It was brutal Bruce." Tim said as he pushed the bowl away. "He didn't even ask for them to surrender."

"I know. To be face to face with such carnage, it's hard to believe that some think he's one of the good guys. In the end, he did save you from your predicament."

"Yeah, but at what cost?"

"I understand how you feel. I also understand how he feels. When I lost Jason, I almost lost it when I went after the joker. The pain is intense, almost unbearable."

"I hope I never have to go through something like that."

"That makes two of us..."


End file.
